Volante's products are applicable to a wide variety of solutions used by the financial services industry, including payments, corporate actions, market data and trade processing.

Background on Swift NAK handling

Whenever a SWIFT member firm puts out a message to the SWIFT network, it should ensure that the message is a properly constructed SWIFT message complying with all the validation rules specified by the SWIFT standards release guidelines.
If a message is invalid, then the SWIFT network will not send this message to the intended recipient, but instead will reject this message by sending a NAK (Negative Acknowledgement) back to the sender.

There is a charge levied by SWIFT for every message that gets NAK'd. In addition to this, NAK'd messages trigger additional workflows to make necessary amends to the original transaction. These provisions are part of a larger process referred to as "Exception Processing" - something that most organizations regard as a necessary overhead. However, this is clearly inefficient and it doesn't have to be. Understanding the root causes of SWIFT NAKs within the organizations own environment will help control message processing time and costs.

Addressing the issue
There are two facets to addressing the issue of NAKs - Avoidance and Repair. Volante provides solutions that impart both these capabilities.

Avoidance: If all SWIFT messages were properly formatted and validated in full compliance with SWIFT standards, then one can minimize, if not eliminate NAKs. Volante's SWIFT Messaging Solutions provide SWIFT Message Validations exactly as they are validated by the SWIFT network. Volante also provides routine upgrades corresponding to SWIFT SRG releases to all customers.

Repair: Sometimes organizations may still receive NAKs in spite of using avoidance techniques. For instance, if they have legacy software that generates invalid messages or if reference data sources (such as a BIC database) used to perform validations is out of date, there is a need for efficient post- processing of these NAKs. Volante's SWIFT NAK Handling solution automates and streamlines exception processing. Volante provides automatic correlation of NAK messages to the original transaction. Additionally, identification of the exact source of the exception and a business friendly presentation to correct and resubmit the message enables rapid resolution of the problem.

Volante's SWIFT Messaging Solutions have been deployed in production environments by customers connecting to the SWIFT network. The time-to-market of implementations and associated cost savings along with other benefits realized by these customers are sure proof of the value of this solution.